Supreme Court: While considering the instant appeal challenging 2015 decision by Patna High Court to uphold conviction and sentencing of 5 accused persons and reversing acquittal of 2 accused persons in connection to a murder case in 1985; the Division Bench of Bela M. Trivedi and Satish Chandra Sharma*, JJ., on detailed analysis of the case, found that the prosecution failed to discharge its burden to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt. The reasonable doubts were irreconcilable and struck at the foundation of the prosecution’s case. Therefore, the Court set aside the conviction and sentence of the 7 accused persons and acquitted them of all charges.
The Court emphasised that in order to reverse a finding of acquittal, a higher threshold is required. The presumption of innocence operating in favour of an accused throughout the trial gets concretized with a finding of acquittal by the Trial Court. Thus, such a finding could not be reversed merely because the possibility of an alternate view was alive.
Background:
In 1985, the deceased girl’s brother alleged that she was abducted by 7 persons in order to forcefully obtain the possession of the house belonging to her father and was later killed. Investigation was commenced which led to the filing of a chargesheet against the seven convicts. The Trial Court charged all seven accused persons for the commission of offences punishable under Sections , , , , , / , , and of . The Trial Court, vide order dated 05-06-1992, convicted the accused persons listed as Accused Persons 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 for the commission of offences under Section / and / of . They were acquitted of all other charges and Accused 6 and 7 (A-6 and A-7) were acquitted of all the charges.
The accused persons preferred an appeal before the Patna High Court against the order of conviction. The High Court vide a common judgment dated 26-03-2015, upheld the conviction of the five convicts and set aside the acquittal of accused nos. 6 and 7 by finding them guilty of the commission of offences under Sections / and / of . Accordingly, accused nos. 6 and 7 were also convicted and were sentenced to undergo rigorous life imprisonment on each count.
Court’s Assessment:
Perusing the case, the Court delved in detail into the proceedings before the Trial Court and Patna High Court. It was noted that the Trial Court relied primarily on oral testimonies of the prosecution witnesses and circumstantial evidence while convicting 5 persons. Furthermore, motive for the commission of the offence was supplied by the pending legal dispute relating to the property.
Upon reading the impugned order, the Court found that Patna High Court carried out a fresh appreciation of evidence before affirming conviction and sentencing of 5 persons and re-convicting the remaining 2.
Principal issue before the Court was whether the finding of guilt of the convicts arrived at by the High Court was sustainable given the evidence on record. As a corollary of this issue, it also needed to be examined whether the approach of the High Court was in line with the settled law for reversing an acquittal into conviction in a criminal appeal.
It was pointed out that after two rounds of litigation before the Trial Court and the High Court, the case was to be examined only with respect to the offences under Sections and of read with Section .
Vis-a-vis Section , the case of the prosecution was based on direct oral evidence, and with respect to the offence under Section , , the case of the prosecution was essentially based on circumstantial evidence as no direct evidence of the commission of murder could be collected. “There is a sequential relationship between the two offences and thus, in order to set up a case for the commission of the offence of murder, it is necessary to prove the commission of the offence of abduction by the accused persons/appellants. For, the chain, in a case based on circumstantial evidence, must be complete and consistent”.
Examining the testimonies of the independent and chance witnesses presented by the prosecution, the Court noted that there were several lacunas. Furthermore, the Court found that the testimonies of the eyewitnesses were also impeachable. Furthermore, the Court raised concerns regarding the fairness of investigation after noticing that there were stark differences between the statements given by investigating officer and senior officers who had exercised supervision over the IO.
The Court further pointed out that none of the eyewitnesses was an independent witness of fact. Ordinarily, there is no rule of law to discard the testimonies of the witnesses merely because they were known to the victim or belonged to her family. For, an offence may be committed in circumstances that only the family members are present at the place of occurrence in natural course. However, the instant case does not fall in such category. In the facts of the instant case, the natural presence of the eyewitnesses at the place of occurrence is under serious doubt, and for unexplained reasons, the naturally present public persons were not examined as witnesses in the matter.
The Court also pointed out that the conduct of the eyewitnesses also appeared to be unnatural considering that they were all relatives of the deceased. “They saw the accused persons leaving with X after abducting her. It is also admitted that they had identified the accused persons, who were essentially the relatives of the eyewitnesses. In such circumstances, as per natural human conduct, the least that they could have done was to follow the accused persons in their jeep. They admittedly had a ready vehicle with them. Despite so, there was no such attempt on their part, so much so that the dead body of X was not even discovered until the following morning as none of the eyewitnesses had any clue as to where the accused persons had taken away the deceased after abducting her”.
The Court also noted that the approach of the High Court in reversing the acquittal of A-6 and A-7 was not in line with the settled law pertaining to reversal of acquittals. Trial Court had acquitted the said two accused persons on the basis of a thorough appreciation of evidence and the High Court merely observed that their acquittal was based on the improbable statement of PW-5 and since the evidence of PW-5 stood excluded from the record, there was no reason left for the acquittal of A-6 and A-7.
The Division Bench further pointed out that the High Court did not arrive at any finding of illegality or perversity in the opinion of the Trial Court on that count. Furthermore, it did not arrive at any positive finding of involvement of the two Accused Persons within the sphere of common intention with the remaining accused persons. Equally, the exclusion of the evidence of PW5, without explaining as to how the evidence of other prosecution witnesses was not liable to be excluded in the same manner, was incorrect and erroneous.
The Court emphasised that in order to reverse a finding of acquittal, a higher threshold is required. The view taken by the Trial Court must be held to be completely unsustainable and not a probable view. “The High Court, in the impugned judgment, took a cursory view of the matter and reversed the acquittal of A-6 and A-7 without arriving at any finding of illegality or perversity or impossibility of the Trial Court’s view or non-appreciation of evidence by the Trial Court”.
The Court therefore observed that case of the prosecution was full of glaring doubts as regards the offence of abduction. The Court further pointed out that although, the postmortem report indicated that the death of the deceased was unnatural and the commission of murder cannot be ruled out; but there was no direct evidence on record to prove the commission of murder by the convicts. The link of causation between the convicts and the alleged offence was conspicuously missing. The foundation of circumstantial evidence having fallen down, no inference could be drawn from it to infer the commission of the offence under Section by the convicts.
Vis-a-vis motive, the Court stated that motive has a bearing only when the evidence on record is sufficient to prove the ingredients of the offences under consideration. Without proof of foundational facts, the prosecution’s case cannot succeed with motive alone.
Hence, the Court concluded that findings of conviction arrived at by the Trial Court and the High Court are not sustainable. Moreover, the High Court erred in reversing the acquittal of A-6 and A-7. Accordingly, the impugned judgment and the judgment rendered by the Trial Court (to the extent of conviction of A-1 to A-5) was set aside.
CASE DETAILS
| Citation: Criminal Appeal No. 1031 of 2015 Appellants : Vijay Singh Respondents : State of Bihar | Advocates who appeared in this case Appellant: Ajay Kumar Singh Respondents: Abhinav Mukherji; Manish Kumar Intervenor: Shantanu Sagar |
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